ABUSE

Jan 18 - A RELIGIOUS leader with three convictions for "filming a person's private parts without consent" was among 17 Sunday schoolteachers, priests and church ushers who last year sought to work with children.

INTERNATIONAL STORIES

Abuse

Jan 19 - The Vatican has told a United Nations panel assessing the Holy See's adherence to the Convention on the Rights of the Child that it wants to be an example of global best practice when it comes to eliminating child sexual abuse by clergy or church personnel.

Jan 19 - POPE Francis wants to open the Vatican's secret archives on Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust before deciding on sainthood for the controversial wartime pontiff, accused by critics of having turned a blind eye to the extermination of 6m Jews.

Jan 21 - Vatican City: A Vatican monsignor already on trial for allegedly plotting to smuggle 20 million euros ($A31 million) from Switzerland to Italy was ordered arrested in a separate case for allegedly using his Vatican bank accounts to launder money.

Jan 25 - Vatican City (AFP) - President Francois Hollande spoke of "convergence" on international issues after talks with Pope Francis Friday amid a swirling scandal over the French leader's love life and divisions in France over hot-button issues like abortion and euthanasia.

Jan 25 - THE United States Supreme Court is offering a short-term compromise to continue to exempt a group of nuns that operates charity nursing homes from the birth control mandate of the country's health care law.

Jan 25 - Washington (AFP) - The US Supreme Court said religiously-affiliated groups could opt out of a provision in the new health care law that requires employers to provide insurance that includes contraception.

Jan 24 - Ankara (AFP) - A 400-year-old Turkish hotel that has long been a favourite of movie stars and VIPs from around the world has been forced to close its doors... because of a government ban on alcohol.

Jan 25 - Kuala Lumpur (AFP) - Malaysian Christians must obey rules forbidding them from using the word "Allah", the country's leader was quoted saying Friday, breaking his silence in a festering row that has raised fears of religious conflict.

Jan 26 - Dakar (AFP) - Senegalese music icon Youssou N'Dour will on Sunday record a song dedicated to peace in Central African Republic with a singer from the country which has been torn apart by inter-religious violence, his office said.

Jan 21 - Washington: On a recent Friday evening in Kabul, Afghanistan, I gathered with friends at the Lebanese restaurant that had long been a convivial and secure oasis in a harsh and unpredictable country.

Jan 22 - A group calling itself the Al Nusra Front in Lebanon and believed to be affiliated to the Syrian Al-Qaeda-linked group of the same name has claimed responsibility for a Beirut bomb attack that killed up to four people.

Jan 22 - Pakistani fighter jets pounded tribal areas near the Afghan border in an operation against Taliban militants today, flattening several houses and sending villagers fleeing from their homes, military sources and local residents said.

Jan 23 - As many as 6000 children in the Central African Republic have been recruited by armed groups and forced to commit atrocities along religious lines in a conflict that is at high risk of spiraling into genocide, UN envoys said.

Jan 26 - MORE Christian-Muslim violence has erupted in the Central African Republic, forcing new interim President Catherine Samba Panza to take time out from talks on forming a government tasked with ending the bloodshed.

Jan 24 - Yangon (AFP) - The United Nations has called on Myanmar to investigate reports that dozens of men, women and children were killed in attacks on Rohingya Muslims with the alleged involvement of police.

Jan 26 - The Philippines government and Muslim rebels says they have cleared the last hurdle in long-running peace negotiations, paving the way to end a deadly decades-old insurgency in the country's south.

Jan 21 - Seoul: The United States has offered to send its special envoy to North Korea to Pyongyang to secure the release of American missionary Kenneth Bae after he appeared in front of journalists asking Washington to help him get home.

Jan 23 - Shehu Bello leaned on a staff as he stood guard over his two dozen head of cattle grazing outside Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, and spoke grimly about his two main adversaries: farmers and desertification.

Jan 24 - THE Mormon church has issued a sweeping defence of Utah's famously strict liquor laws, drawing a line against tourism, restaurant and bar industry advocates who have helped ease alcohol regulations in recent years in the US state.

Jan 25 – (Obituary) Chuck Smith was a Christian fundamentalist pastor whose appeal to disillusioned hippies of the Haight Ashbury era fuelled the rise of the “Jesus movement” of the 1970s and inspired the introduction of religious worship into pop culture.